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Emotional Expression
One of the main goals of Kuraŋo was to create a language in which expression of emotional states and cognitive processes was more flexible than English. Kuraŋo accomplishes this through a lot of suffixal morphology and some reduplication. The emotion marker ga ga ''is an adjective which indicates a state of emotional being. By itself, it glosses to "emotion" as an abstract concept. However, it has a lot of suffixation that can change its meaning. Morphosyntax of ''ga constructions The adjective ga ''has three slots upon which morphology can affix. "NEG" negates all following emotional morphology. "EMO" is a category for indicating explicit emotional states. "TARG" indicates the target of the previous emotion. "DUR" indicates the duration of the previous emotion. When expressing a specific emotion (that is, not the concept of "emotion" in general), only EMO is mandatory. The other three slots can be omitted without affecting grammaticality, but may be included for distinguishing between more precise differences between emotions. The NEG suffix The NEG slot can only be occupied by one suffix, ''-ŋa. -''ŋa negates the emotional construction that follows it. Examples of ''gaŋa ''constructions * ''gaŋasi, "''Things are not going well" * ''gaŋatixupasi ''"I am angry at someone" * ''gaŋaⱱuɸupasi "I am scared" * gaŋatitixudasi ''"I do not love him/her" * ''gaŋaⱱuⱱuɸudadasi ''"I have longstanding anxiety" The NEUT suffixː neutered emotions '''add stuff about ambivalence/apathy/indifference laterǃǃǃ' pragmaticsː passive aggressiveness The PRIM suffixː primal emotions The PRIM suffix, ''-pɔ, makes an emotion "primal" (affection > lust, happiness > pleasure, etc). EMO suffixes EMO suffixes indicate explicit emotional states. Their lexicon is based on Paul Ekman's theories of emotion, but additional emotional suffixes have been added to his proposed basic emotions. * ''-ka ''indicates happiness or content. * ''-ti indicates affection. * ''-ⱱu'' indicates confidence. It is commonly negated to express fear or fright (depending on duration). * -''tɔ indicates excitement. It is negated to express disappointment. * ''-xa ''indicates a sense of pride/accomplishment. It is negated to express guilt, shame, and regret, depending on duration and target. Changes in duration can mean immediate or longstanding satisfaction. TARG suffixes The TARG suffixes indicate the target of emotion. There are four possibilities for this morphosyntactic category: * ''-xu ''represents an animate target. This can be a person or an animal. * ''-ɸu ''represents no target. It is also the inanimate suffix for a lot of constructions, and it can serve that purpose here too (eg: mad at your washing machine), but an inanimate pronoun usually follows to provide context in an ambiguous environment. * -''mu is a reflexive target (eg: gaŋatimupasi "I am angry at myself"). * ''-ru is a reciprocal target (eg: gatitirudasi "We are in love" OR "I am in love with someone") DUR suffixes DUR suffixes are often omitted in common conversation, and used primarily to parse apart the subtle differences between discrete emotions. * The long durative ''-da ''indicates that the emotion occurred for a long period of time, something like the distinction between an emotion and a mood. * The short durative ''-pa, on the other hand, marks the emotion as a fleeting state. Reduplication Like other morphological categories in Kuraŋo, EMO and DUR can experience reduplication (TARG and NEG cannot). Reduplication of EMO Reduplication of EMO increases intensity of the emotion. If ti is affection, then ''titi ''is love, and ''ŋatiti ''is hate. If ''ka ''is content, then ''kaka ''is joy and ''ŋakaka ''is despair. If ''ɰɔ ''is pleasure, then ''ɰɔɰɔ ''is lust. Reduplication of DUR Reduplication of dur increases intensity of the length. ''dada ''is "really long," and ''papa ''is "fleeting." the EMO suffixes can also be reduplicated to turn them into verbs (interchangeably intransitive/transitive)